Vibrantly ridiculous.

I feel like I need to start by saying that I've never been quite so excited about a season's wardrobe as I have been about my Spring/Summer one for this year. I've added a few colours and patterns to my base of black/white neutrals, and some incredible statement jewellery. I feel like my style direction for this season isn't really anything more complicated than vibrantly ridiculous. I've been really happy with the pieces that ASOS Curve have recently released; lots of colour and interesting textures. However, I'm a little disappointed in the special ASOS Australia line so far, in terms of their Curve offerings. So far I've only seen a few Curve designs in the entire promotion. Having said that, they've been updating regularly and, of course, I've been very happy with the main line. 

The palette.  Amazing sequins (multicolour pastels with a few strong shades give an overall shade of mauve/purple) and digital prints. This particular botanic print shirt is incredible. Slightly sheer, it's a feature... without wearing you. 

New, perfect necklace. Wore it yesterday to a total of seven "not now/I'm busy" jokes from strangers. Success? I love it. I think I grabbed one of the last ones, it was limited release (from ASOS, of course).

My shirt finally arrived. It's even better than I had hoped it would be. It feels a bit odd to wear in the sense that I wear a statement necklace almost every day and I couldn't with this shirt. I like the baggy, masculine cut of the shirt. I find I quite like wearing tailored or masculine cuts. I have a pronounced hourglass figure and I find sometimes I look exaggeratedly feminine (far more than I like) when I wear girly cuts, fabrics or colours so it's a nice balance. Plus, it's a pain to have things taken in at the waist all of the time. 

Ridiculous new shoes. Ridiculous because I can't actually walk in high heels. Oops. Practice, right?

Another view of the skirt. It's quite difficult to get an accurate representation of the colours - they're either darkened or very bleached out. Either way, it's fantastic to wear.

I've got a few peplum tops (black and olive green) that I love, and I'm looking for some tapered black harem pants for work. Since I haven't found a single pair that I like, I'm considering buying some fabric and making my own. Yikes. High waist, tapered fitted leg to skinny ankle. Shouldn't be too difficult. Having said that, I am the girl who sewed over her own finger in grade eight Home Economics.

Poor fingers.

Wearing the pants.

Caught more trains today (four, can you believe it?) than I have in the past three years (exciting). If a 20 minute train trip wasn't a 30 minute walk away, and the equivalent bus trip took longer than the usual 13 minutes door-to-door, I'd maybe think about perhaps considering it. Maybe. I love you, trains! It's like you glide through dioramas of old times or something.

Breakfast this morning. There may be a day where I don't order the 'gringo' baked eggs. It wasn't today, anyway. Maple bacon and spiced avocado on the side? Oh whatever, no big deal. YES. My coffee with a thick layer of condensed milk under coffee and ice cubes and I nearly wept. Happy days, you guys. That's pretty much everything I've ever truly loved trapped in a jar right there. Still driving across town to get to Lady Marmalade. Still worth it.

Today I was also a lady that wore trousers. Trousers, for the first time since I could choose my own clothes several years. I made sure I kept it nice and subtle, to ease myself into trouser-wearing.

Ha.

Prints! Prints and more prints (and a long-desired Domino necklace from Sportsgirl). Besides the lace pants I got from ASOS, I picked up some fantastic geometric and weird floral ones, too. I had to adjust all of them, I have a smaller waist and skinny ankles so I need to take them in at the top and end of the legs.

I'm a convert, though. They're all comfortable, practical and wearable. No worries about wind and skirts! How exciting are trousers? Idea: the Exciting Printed Trouser Fan Club. Vice President? Totally this guy:

"Heeeeeeeeeeey, sexy lady!"

Nugget necklace tutorial.

It was raining and dreary today. I was a whisker away from boredom when I realised that, hey, I could maybe do something. Something inside the house. Groundbreaking, right? I could maybe make myself a necklace! My affection for large statement necklaces is only getting stronger, you guys, and woman can only trawl Sportsgirl so many times in a fortnight. I liked the look of some geometric bead necklaces that I've been seeing around, so I thought I'd try to make one myself.

I whisked myself over to Spotlight and got some supplies. The Spotlight near my house, which I only just realised was there about a month ago, is enormous. Enormous and completely devoid of signs. After about an hour of drifting along to a chorus of babies wailing like nothing I have ever heard before, I finally found everything. I mean, sure, I walked past everything at least twice because I was ducking between innumerable mothers and their primary school-aged children who all seemed to be wielding bolts of fabric like oddly fluffy lances or something.

Then I got home and everything was great again. Great and filled with geometric-sort-of-I-guess bead necklaces. They're really easy to make, so you should maybe make one perhaps? I'm calling it my nugget necklace. You'll need polymer clay, razor blades, twine and claps (if you want to use them).

I used polymer clay. It's easy to manipulate, bakes pretty fast, and is really durable. I used to use it a lot as a kid, because people in the nineties were obviously a little blasé about children playing with chemically stuff. Polymer clay comes in a large range of colours but if you are me, you don't really care about those so much and go for black, slightly pearlescent and brown. Shocker.

The first thing I did was shape polymer clay into spheres. Make the spheres a little bigger than you would like the finished bead to be, because you'll be cutting them down to shape them. I chose black and a slightly larger pearlescent one. I wear a lot of black, so I didn't want the necklace to disappear when I wore it. Tip: do the light colours before the dark ones, and wash your hands well in between. The pearly white went a little bit grey, but I was cool with that. 

 It was dark by the time I took these photos. Jared told me to wait until morning. Is he kidding? I want to tell the internet about it now. The next step is about as tricky as the whole thing gets. Put your little spheres in the freezer for a little while. I used this time to dash out and buy razor blades, because I quickly discovered that polymer clay deforms if you try to slice it up with just any old implement. After about twenty minutes, take the spheres out of the freezer and start slicing with your razor blades. I took a little bit off at a time so I could control the shape. Don't cut your fingers, obviously. Or let children anywhere near any of this, really.

Since these are going to be beads, they'll need holes in them. I used a skewer (just a regular bamboo one) and gently but firmly pushed it through the clay. Rotating the skewer will ensure there will be minimal clay blow out at the other end. After you've gone through one way, push the skewer back through the same hole, but from the other end. This will also stop the bead bulging oddly. Gently put them on a tray and bake according to the polymer clay instructions. Once they come out, let the nuggets cool. I used white twine and tied and crimped on a antique silver coloured clasp. I didn't really need to do that, because I made the necklace to be really long. You could just knot it off, really.

So there we are. Nugget necklaces for all.